


Patchwork

by Archaeopteryx



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Childhood Trauma, Comfort Object, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma Recovery, love vs the ship of theseus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23864917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archaeopteryx/pseuds/Archaeopteryx
Summary: Dedue pressed the quilt to his face one last time, inhaled deeply, then packed it away at the top of his trunk.He could sleep anywhere, if he had his quilt.Of all Dedue has lost and all he's left behind, his quilt is one thing he's allowed himself to grow attached to. Patches can be re-stitched and filling replaced. Despite all, it remainshis, a comfort and a treasure.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 7
Kudos: 59





	Patchwork

"I … um … I brought some things." Dimitri shrugged a bag off his shoulder. It fit through the bars of the cell with a bit of persuasion. Dedue stared, numb and ill at ease, but he took the bag, and knelt to unbutton the flap.

A few folded-paper packets, containing hard pastry shell and heavy biscuits. Loose cloth, colored thread, a pincushion with several needles. Under it all … under it all, a folded quilt, sized for a child's bed, large enough for Dedue to curl up under. Heavy and warm, stuffed with wool or down. He packed the other things carefully away, one at a time, then pressed his face into the quilt. It smelled like dust, like human, like home and care, and he had to blink back tears before he could look up at Dimitri.

Dimitri shifted on his feet, rubbing the side of his neck. "I thought you might like it … it’ll keep you warm, anyway. It used to be mine, but you can keep it, if you like."

The center featured a roaring lion’s face, gold and brown, with beaded blue eyes and white fangs. The border had a motif of pines, dark green and black; high mountains capped with white velvet; a backdrop of pale blue sky. Not a flame or wisp of smoke in sight. Dedue balled the quilt against his chest and curled up, face buried in the fabric.

Cloth shuffled. “It’s not fair,” Dimitri muttered. Louder, he said, “I’ll get you out of here. And I’ll take care of you until then. And if anyone hurts you — ”

His voice skipped up to a cracking snarl.

“ — they’ll wear every bone in both their hands as a _necklace!_ ”

Dedue peered up from the corner of one eye. Dimitri knelt, elbows on his knees. He met Dedue’s gaze with a crooked smile, eyes bright and fierce as the beaded lion's, and thrust out his hand.

“I promise,” he said.

Dedue's eyes flicked down to Dimitri's hand, then back up to his face.

He buried his nose in the lion's mane, and took Dimitri's hand.

***

Dedue hugged the quilt to his chest, shoulders bunched against the wall.

Stone walls. Oak door. Dark wooden shelving, dark wooden desk. Bed. Window. Hearth with a low-burning fire. He nudged the door with his elbow. It didn’t budge.

After a while, his knees began to ache. He drew a deep breath through his nose, and stepped away from the wall.

The room shifted around him. When he looked down, he stood in front of the bed.

His thumb rubbed back and forth across one of the velvet mountaintops. He pressed his nose into the fabric, then spread the quilt out over the bed. It settled with a downy flump. The quilted lion stared up at him, beaded teeth bared and gleaming. He poked a finger into its black velvet nose. Its expression did not change.

Now something in this room was his.

His arms felt empty without something to hold. The lion’s bright blue eyes blurred and smeared. His breath stuttered. He choked on nothing.

He scrubbed his eyes on his wrist, crawled underneath his quilt, and curled up in a ball.

***

Halves, quarters, eighths. Dedue folded his quilt neatly on the bed, delicate beadwork turned inward. A few of the threads had come loose over the years, leaving the lion’s mane shaggier than intended; the deep green pines had faded, and the velvet mountaintops grown threadbare in patches, but he’d repaired any damage with meticulous care. It had the warm weight of a gift well-loved, and though he'd outgrown it some time ago, he wasn’t about to leave it behind. Not when they were headed off to yet another strange place, unfamiliar, where he would know nothing and no one but Dimitri. 

He’d packed little else personal. A few vials of seeds, saved for Garreg Mach’s greenhouse, and a spice box stocked with rarer seasonings he wasn't sure he could find at the monastery. A chipped, blocky wooden figurine … _supposedly_ in the shape of a bear; Dimitri had tried, and Dedue had found the discarded attempt too endearing to throw away. Aside from that, it was all practical. The less he had, the less he could lose.

He pressed the quilt to his face one last time, inhaled deeply, then packed it away at the top of his trunk.

He could sleep anywhere, if he had his quilt.

***

Flames climbed the monastery walls, consuming wood and ivy. Steel clashed on steel. Knights’ blood spilled across the paving-stones.

“The battle is lost, your Highness! We need to go!”

Dimitri wrenched his lance out of a soldier’s chest, adding another spatter of lifeblood to the gore already smeared across his face. The man collapsed, forgotten. Dimitri wheeled to face Dedue with eyes wide and teeth bared. “Not until I — ”

He broke off with a squawk as Dedue grabbed him around the middle and hauled him over his shoulders. The lance clattered to the stone walkway.

“What are you doing?!”

“There is no time,” Dedue snapped as he broke into a run. He had never been built for speed, but between his armor and his axe, soldiers scattered from his path like pigeons before an oxcart. “Your life is my priority, whether you like it or not.”

Dimitri’s fist beat against his back, once, weakly, before he went limp. “Damn you,” he sobbed, voice breaking without any vehemence.

Damn Faerghus; damn every fool who worshipped sacrifice for its own sake; damn the poison that turned Dimitri’s own will against him, and damn every loss Dedue had borne because someone else’s goddess would not mind her people.

Tucked away in the student dormitories, as yet untouched by flames or fighting, a lion's blue eyes gazed blindly skyward.

***

In five years, Garreg Mach had changed little. Dedue supposed its stone foundations had weathered worse, in the thousand years it had stood atop this mountain. The townspeople, soldiers, and scarce returning monks had done impressive work on its restoration, though many buildings and much of the grand cathedral remained in rubble.

Bitterly, he felt almost jealous that the people of these mountains had such freedom to rebuild their home. He did his best to set it aside. Lucky for the people of the Oghma mountains; soon enough, Duscur would have her day.

At any rate, he walked the old paths of the Officer’s Academy with a dizzying sense of familiarity. Phantom voices called to him, their words indistinct, gone with muffled laughter and a patter of footsteps when he turned to look. Colors flickered in his peripheral vision, the faces of friends grown, or gone, or turned to strangers. He felt certain that if he turned, he’d find Dimitri at his shoulder, blond hair neatly trimmed, eyes bright and step quick with feverish determination.

Each time he slipped too deep into old memories, some other, unfamiliar sight reminded him: a fallen arch or broken-in doorway, a lawn overgrown and gone to seed, a building suffocating beneath ivy.

He had little reason to come back here. The Lions had moved their quarters to the knights’ halls; while the dormitories had sustained less damage than some parts of the monastery, they remained dusty and disused, perhaps for the same reasons Dedue felt so unsettled amidst these haunted ruins. Still, he felt compelled to see what had become of his old room. If, perhaps — 

Well. He wouldn’t hope prematurely.

The wooden door remained more or less intact. A few planks had come loose, and the finish had chipped or worn away entirely. The hinges shrieked when the door swung inward, but they held. Mildewed air rushed from the stone room, and Dedue sneezed, choking on what must have been years of disturbed dust.

Had his room always been so small?

The plant-pots stood empty, mostly in their old places, though two had fallen and smashed. The desk had collapsed, eaten through by rot and woodworm. The bed … 

Ah.

Dedue swallowed, his throat tight. 

The quilt fell to pieces in his hands as he lifted it from the moldering bed. Mice and birds had eaten through most of it, pulling out its down stuffing for nests. Mold, mildew and moths had shredded the fabric, and stained much of what remained intact.

He wiped his face on his sleeve, blamed his watering eyes and nose on the dust, and gave it a more critical look.

On second glance, more remained salvageable than he'd thought: about half of the lion's face, one gleaming eye and beaded fang; maybe a third of the border, a few of the mountains and the mottled pines, the sky water-stained but still blue. Mercedes might have thoughts on cleaning and saving the portions that retained their structure. He could restore the rest, find new fabric, fill it with fresh stuffing.

He ran his fingers over the lion's velvet nose, faded now from black to reddish-brown.

It was a quilt, after all. Patchwork had always been its nature. It might be in pieces, and it might take work, but he would save it.

***

"Rosemary," Dedue said, low and serious, "I have a gift for you."

“Mweh,” said Rosemary. A bubble of spit popped at the corner of her mouth.

"It was a gift to me, many years ago. As my daughter, I pass it on to you."

Dedue pressed his face to the lion’s, rubbed his thumb over a velvet mountaintop, and placed the folded quilt on his daughter’s fat infant belly. She released his hand to investigate it. Since she was only a few months old, this meant sticking a corner into her mouth. Well, Dedue hadn’t expected her to appreciate the finer points of quiltcraft.

The lion had become a lioness, its shaggy mane replaced by a deep night-sky starburst. The other half of its face was a bear’s, dark brown, with a golden eye and a white satin fang to match its beaded counterpart. Dedue had restored the border more or less faithfully, though where he had needed to recreate it from whole cloth, he had styled the pines and mountains in Duscur geometry. It was still stuffed with down, fit to keep a crib or a child’s bed warm through harsh northern nights.

“That is a lion,” he told Rosemary, "and that is a bear.” He pointed to each beast in turn, though Rosemary took more interest in chasing his finger than in his impromptu taxonomy lesson. “And that,” Dedue said, poking the tip of his daughter’s nose, “is a little lion cub.”

"Myam," Rosemary agreed. Her hand slapped down on the bear's yellow eye. "Beh."

Had she just — ?

She reached for his face, chubby hands waving. Dedue gave her his hand. Rosemary's fingers closed around his thumb, and she pulled it into her mouth.

"You may not understand this," he told her. "I pray you never need to. But a quilt is not easily destroyed."

Rosemary paused her determined gumming at his knuckle, and her baby-pale eyes turned upwards. Dedue’s heart welled up with love enough to drown in. He rested his free hand on the quilt, over his daughter's chest.

"As long as even a scrap remains, it will be with you," he said. His eyes stung, and his voice quivered. "It will keep you safe and warm for as long as you need it, and you will never be alone."

Rosemary hiccupped, and Dedue hurried to dry his eyes before his tears upset his daughter. He lifted her from her crib, tucked the quilt around her, and held her close against his shoulder.

"There, little cub," he murmured into her wispy silver hair. "Don't cry. I'm here."

"Bahb," Rosemary mumbled. She buried her face in his shoulder, chewing once more on a corner of her quilt. Dedue kissed the top of her head.

All was right with the world.


End file.
